I wouldn’t blame anyone if they needed a break from the Phillies. Their weekend series against the Blue Jays was one of the worst displays of baseball I’ve seen in a while, with both teams seemingly trying to hand games to their opponents. The Phillies’ extra inning win on Sunday was one of the most “felt like a loss” wins in a while.
At least the Phillies will give the home fans a break and take their act to St. Louis where they’ll go against another mediocrity in the form of the St. Louis Cardinals.
Is it too much to ask that they start to look like a competent baseball team again?
Opposition research: Riley O’Brien
It took a long time for Riley O’Brien to encounter success. The grandson of a former major leaguer, the early part of his career was wasted as he tried – and failed – to develop as a starting pitcher. After being converted to relief, he missed most of the 2024 season with an elbow injury. But after a solid 2025 season, the Cardinals made him their closer for 2026, and at age 31 he made the All-Star Game for the first time.
Mariners star Junior Caminero probably wishes he hadn’t because O’Brien threw the pitch that hit him in the hand during that game.
There was a decent amount of buzz surrounding O’Brien at the trade deadline. The Cardinals are a longshot to make the playoffs, so why not sell high on a 31-year-old closer with a history of elbow problems?
Ultimately, the deadline passed and O’Brien remains on the Cardinals’ roster, and he’s been at his best lately. Since his last blown save on July 20th, O’Brien has made seven appearances and allowed a grand total of one hit.
Hating on the Cardinals
For one of baseball’s supposed “glamour” franchises, the Cardinals have been irrelevant for a little while now. You may recall when the Phillies beat them in a 2022 Wild Card series, sending franchise legends Albert Pujols and Yadier Molina into retirement. Since then, the Cardinals have missed the playoffs three straight seasons, and things aren’t looking too great this year either.
For a franchise that used to regularly have rosters filled with household names, the Cardinals don’t have much star power on hand this season. Phillies fans are now well familiar with Jordan Walker, but you’d probably be surprised at how few current Cardinals you could name.
Remembering a guy who played for both teams
There were times when it looked like “Hard Hittin” Mark Whiten was going to become a star. He had all the power in the world, which made him an appealing trade target, but he was too inconsistent with it, which is part of why he was traded five times in his career.
He arrived in St. Louis before the 1993 season and delivered a memorable moment on September 7 of that year:
He followed up that 25-home runs season by recording an .849 OPS in the shortened 1994 season.
But the Cardinals deemed him expendable and traded him to the Red Sox before the 1995 season. Whiten was awful in Boston, so the Sox traded him to the Phillies in exchange for Dave Hollins who had fallen out of favor with Phillies management.
Whiten rebounded in Philadelphia, with a .846 OPS and eleven home runs in 60 games. But despite putting up decent numbers in the early part of 1996, the Phillies released him. Of course, in 1996, batting .236 was considered bad, even though he had a .356 on-base percentage.
The Braves picked him up for the stretch run, one of four teams he’d suit up for over the next four seasons. In 1997, he was arrested for sexual abuse, which might go a long way toward explaining why he changed teams so often.
Additional thought about the series
It seems clear that both Jose Alvarado and Orion Kerkering could use a break from high leverage situations. Alvarado has been a mess all year, and while Kerkering was doing well earlier in the season, he’s been a disaster lately.
If there’s a high leverage spot and it makes sense to use a lefty, there is absolutely no case for using Alvarado over Tim Mayza or Brooks Raley. (Why trade for the guy if you’re not going to use him in key spots?) And Jonathan Bowlan should get the remainder of the setup opportunities, although he’s been used a lot lately, and it wouldn’t shock me if his effectiveness suffers as a result.
There’s a lot of blame to go around for the Phillies’ current relief malaise: Don Mattingly is not good at managing a bullpen, there have been a lot of close games, the starters haven’t been going deep enough into games, especially recently (although Jesus Luzardo went seven innings, and it still didn’t matter), and Brad Keller’s injury hasn’t helped. But for better or worse, the team was counting on guys like Alvarado and Kerkering to be viable, and they simply haven’t been.
